Other People's Words

“Phenomenal Woman” was written by Maya Angelou and originally published in an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine in 1978, and then in And Still I Rise, her third volume of collected poetry, later that same year. Dr. Mica Mitchell tells of how this poem helped shape her as a girl moving into womanhood and continues to inspire her today. 

It seems we need reminders from time to time about what deserves our limited time and energy. Dr. Craig Bowrun reads “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” by Wendell Berry, to help remind us to whom or what we should devote ourselves.

How do you define love? How do you describe it to someone else? Mark Joesting reads an excerpt from Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love to do just that.

Some of Mark’s work can be found here. It’s wicked good.

We are living a path blindly.

Sarah Troedson Haynes relates how the advice from a revered figure gave her comfort and freedom at a time in her life, much like Franz Xaver Kappus did with Rainer Maria Rilke in the early 20th century. She reads an excerpt from Letters from a Young Poet.

Have you ever been un-dragoned?

Jeremy Nilson reads an excerpt from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third book in The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis, in which the character of Eustace recounts how he was changed back from a dragon into a boy.

Jeremy uses the tale as a parallel for his own experiences of relying on the help of others to shed elements of his past that were weighing him down. He is the owner and proprietor of The Gaming Goat, a most excellent board game store in St. Paul, Minnesota, as well as a founding member of Remaker’s Mark, a most excellent podcast about movies.

The Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir from Joan Didion, describing the time after her husband passed away. She gives clear and direct words to the tangle of emotions we experience during a period of mourning.

The last year or so certainly hasn’t been magical, and for far too many people, it has involved the loss of a loved one with its accompanying mourning.

Lyndsay LeClair reads an excerpt from The Year of Magical Thinking to perhaps help those of us who are mourning.

This episode was scored, edited, and produced by Andy Wicks.

“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” Versions of this quote, sometimes attributed to Joseph Stalin in 1947 or a French diplomat or German satirist in 1925, depending on who you ask, succinctly explains the numbness that the world feels at the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic, which stands at 2,285,048 at the time of this recording, according to the World Health Organization.

What is the opposite of losing the forest for the trees? We are bombarded with these numbers every day and the death of one person can seem…well, unimportant to us. But it is important, in fact, essential to someone.

Aaron Billard reads a poem entitled “Behind Each Number, One Beloved Face,” written by Malcolm Guite, that helps us to remember the worth of each and every person that has died from this disease.

This episode was scored, produced, and edited by Andy Wicks.

Art can be visual, auditory, tactile, or kinetic. Dr. Edward Mathis tells us how a simple bike ride can be an expression of art, and reads “A Wanderer,” by Indian poet Hashim ZK.

Music in this episode by Andy Wicks.

Words can take you down the same path multiple times to different destinations. Words are a time machine.

In this episode, we hear from two wonderful people: Alex Oana and Chris Collin. Alex and Chris were college classmates, and he recorded her reading Margaret Atwood’s poem “Variation on the Word ‘Sleep'” as a part of his major.

They each tell their own story about the recording of this poem many years ago, and how their own perspectives on it have changed. 

This episode was written, scored, and produced by me, Andy Wicks. The recording of Chris Collin was recorded and produced by Alex Oana and is used with his and Chris’ kind permission.

Janna Boomstra shares a Dutch poem called “Prayer for My Children” and how it has held power and comfort for her family, even when she didn’t understand the foreign words.

Music in this episode by Kai Engel via the Free Music Archive. We heard “Blur” (at 1:16) and “Waltzing in the Rye” (at 4:10).

Find us online by searching for “@opwpod”.